hands skim my bare arms. “Just bounce a little when you walk,” he says, kissing my forehead, “and pretend you’re afraid of their guns”—another kiss between my eyebrows—“and act like the shrinking violet you could never be”—a kiss on my cheek—“and you’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I say. My hands tremble as I grip his shirt collar. I pull his mouth down to mine.
A bell sounds, once, twice, three times. It is a summons to the dining hall, where the Amity gather for less formal occasions than the meeting we attended. We join the crowd of Abnegation-turned-Amity.
I pull pins from Susan’s hair—the hairstyle is too severe for Amity. She gives me a small, grateful smile as her hair falls on her shoulders, the first time I have ever seen it that way. It softens her square jaw.
I am supposed to be braver than the Abnegation, but they don’t seem as worried as I am. They offer each other smiles and walk in silence—in too much silence. I wedge my way between them and jab one of the older women in the shoulder.
“Tell the kids to play tag,” I say to her.
“Tag?” she says.
“They’re acting respectful and … Stiff,” I say, cringing as I say the word that was my nickname in Dauntless. “And Amity kids would be causing a ruckus. Just do it, okay?”
The woman touches one Abnegation child on the shoulder and whispers something to him, and a few seconds later a small group of children run down the hallway, dodging Amity feet and yelling, “I touched you! You’re it!” “No, that was my sleeve!”
Caleb catches on, jabbing Susan in the ribs so she shrieks with laughter. I try to relax, injecting a bounce into my step as Tobias suggested, letting my arms swing as I turn corners. It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything—even the way I walk. That must be why it’s so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.
We catch up to the Amity in front of us as we cross the courtyard to the dining hall and disperse among them. I keep Tobias in my peripheral vision, not wanting to stray too far from him. The Amity don’t ask questions; they just let us dissolve into their faction.
A pair of Dauntless traitors stand by the door to the dining hall, their guns in hand, and I stiffen. It feels real to me, suddenly, that I am unarmed and being herded into a building surrounded by Erudite and Dauntless, and if they discover me, there will be nowhere to run. They will shoot me on the spot.
I consider making a break for it. But where would I go that they could not catch me? I try to breathe normally. I am almost past them—don’t look, don’t look. A few steps away—eyes away, away.
Susan loops her arm through mine.
“I’m telling you a joke,” she says, “that you find very funny.”
I cover my hand with my mouth and force a giggle that sounds high-pitched and foreign, but judging by the smile she gives me, it was believable. We hang on each other the way Amity girls do, glancing at the Dauntless and then giggling again. I am amazed by how I manage to do it, with the leaden feeling inside me.
“Thank you,” I mutter once we’re inside.
“You’re welcome,” she replies.
Tobias sits across from me at one of the long tables, and Susan sits next to me. The rest of the Abnegation spread throughout the room, and Caleb and Peter are a few seats down from me.
I tap my fingers on my knees as we wait for something to happen. For a long time we just sit there, and I pretend to be listening to an Amity girl telling a story on my left. But every so often I look at Tobias, and he looks back at me, like we’re passing fear back and forth between us.
Finally Johanna walks in with an Erudite woman. Her bright blue shirt seems to glow against her skin, which is dark brown. She searches the room as she speaks to Johanna. I hold my breath as her eyes find me—and then let it out when she moves on without a moment’s hesitation. She did not recognize me.
At least, not yet.
Someone bangs on a tabletop, and the room goes quiet. This is it. This is the moment she either hands us over, or doesn’t.
“Our Erudite and Dauntless friends are looking for some people,” Johanna says. “Several members of Abnegation, three members of Dauntless, and a former Erudite initiate.” She smiles. “In the interest of full cooperation, I told them that the people they were looking for were, in fact, here, but have since moved on. They would like permission to search the premises, which means we have to vote. Does anyone object to a search?”
The tension in her voice suggests that if anyone does object, they should keep their mouth shut. I don’t know if the Amity pick up on that kind of thing, but no one says anything. Johanna nods to the Erudite woman.
“Three of you stick around,” the woman says to the Dauntless guards clustered by the entrance. “The rest of you, search all the buildings and report back if you find anything. Go.”
There is so much they could find. The pieces of the hard drive. Clothes I forgot to throw out. A suspicious lack of trinkets and decorations in our living spaces. I feel my pulse behind my eyes as the three Dauntless soldiers who stayed behind pace up and down the rows of tables.
The back of my neck tingles as one of them walks behind me, his footsteps loud and heavy. Not for the first time in my life, I’m glad that I’m small and plain. I don’t draw people’s eyes to me.
But Tobias does. He wears his pride in his posture, in the way his eyes claim everything they land on. That is not an Amity trait. It can only be a Dauntless one.
The Dauntless woman walking toward him looks at him right away. Her eyes narrow as she walks closer, and then stops directly behind him.
I wish the collar of his shirt were higher. I wish he didn’t have so many tattoos. I wish …
“Your hair is pretty short for an Amity,” she says.
… he did not cut his hair like the Abnegation.
“It’s hot,” he says.
The excuse might work if he knew how to deliver it, but he says it with a snap.
She stretches out her hand and, with her index finger, pulls back the collar of his shirt to see his tattoo.
And Tobias moves.
He grabs the woman’s wrist, yanking her forward so she loses her balance. She hits her head against the edge of the table and falls. Across the room, a gun goes off, someone screams, and everyone dives under the tables or crouches next to the benches.
Everyone except me. I sit where I was before the gunshot sounded, clutching the edge of the table. I know that’s where I am, but I don’t see the cafeteria anymore. I see the alley I escaped down after my mother died. I stare at the gun in my hands, at the smooth skin between Will’s eyebrows.
A small sound gurgles in my throat. It would have been a scream if my teeth had not been clamped shut. The flash of memory fades, but I still can’t move.
Tobias grabs the Dauntless
